Religion: Who Is a Jew?

Though Israel has been governed by a delicate alliance of secular and
Orthodox Jews since its birth as a nation, Jewish religious
lawHalakhaenjoys a remarkable prominence in the everyday life of
the country. Last week the Israeli Supreme Court handed down a close
decision that threatens the status of Halakha and could create a
rupture in the ruling coalition. At issue: whether the state may decide
who is and who is not a Jew.

The decision came in the long-pending case of Lieut. Commander Benjamin
Shalit, 34, a psychologist in the Israeli navy (TIME, Nov. 29, 1968).
Shalit, a native-born Israeli, has been trying for years to register
his children (a son, now six, and a daughter, three) as Jews by
nationality, if not by religion. The Israeli Interior Ministry, charged
with registering births, refused to so do, arguing that Shalit's
children do not meet the test of Halakha, which stipulates that a Jew,
to be formally considered such, must have either been born of a Jewish
mother or converted to Judaism. Shalit's wife Anne, a Scottish gentile,
has not converted, nor have the children. The Shalits are both
atheists.

Last week, after nearly two years of deliberation, Israel's Supreme
Court ruled 5-4 in favor of Shalit. The court did not resolve the
substantive issue an ancient oneof whether Jewishness is a matter
of religion, nationality or culture. Instead, it based its ruling on a
technicality: whether the government can use the test of Halakha to
define nationality. The answer was no.

For Shalit, the decision means that the Interior Ministry will have to
register his children as either "Jews" or "Hebrews." For Israel,
however, the decision opens up a potentially grave internal squabble.
The orthodox National Religious Party is determined to seek a law
redressing the Supreme Court decision. One suggested solution would
simply define a Jew according to Halakha. (No such law now exists.)
Another might be to by-pass the question entirely by dropping the
nationality and religious section from the registration rolls. Should
Golda Meir's government fail to press for such action, the Religious
Party will likely resign from the coalitiona prospect that prompted
Religious Affairs Minister Dr. Zerah Warhaftig to note drily that "the
court's decision certainly does not contribute to unity."